Ali Scores Another Knockout

From the Washington Post, this is a delightful item:

Aretha Franklin was teary-eyed, Carol Burnett was teasing, Alan Greenspan was reliably taciturn, and "The Greatest of All Time" stole the show when President Bush bestowed the Medal of Freedom on them and 10 others in a White House ceremony yesterday.

Bush, who appeared almost playful, fastened the heavy medal around Muhammad Ali's neck and whispered something in the heavyweight champion's ear. Then, as if to say "bring it on," the president put up his dukes in a mock challenge. Ali, 63, who has Parkinson's disease and moves slowly, looked the president in the eye -- and, finger to head, did the "crazy" twirl for a couple of seconds.

The room of about 200, including Cabinet secretaries, tittered with laughter. Ali, who was then escorted back to his chair, made the twirl again while sitting down. And the president looked visibly taken aback, laughing nervously.

Was Ali making a political statement? In his remarks about the fighter, Bush mentioned the Olympic gold medal, the grit, "the Ali shuffle, the lightning jabs . . . the sheer guts and determination he brought to every fight." He did not mention Ali's very public opposition to the Vietnam War, which led the prizefighter to lose his boxing license for three years when he refused to serve in the Army.

Let me point out that Ali risked everything, including prison, because of his principles, and even as a veteran, I honor his choice. He was stripped of his heavyweight title because of his courageous stand against the war. Contrast that with Chimpie who evaded service in Vietnam by getting daddy Bush's help to jump over 1000 others to get into the "Champagne unit" of the Texas Air National Guard, and then didn't even fill that obligation. The writer of this piece, Jose Antonio Vargus, sums the ceremony up perfectly with this:

Ali, dressed in a suit, barely cracking a smile, received the loudest and most sustained applause of the day. And the always quotable man who said "I ain't got no quarrel with them Viet Cong" and "I am the onliest of boxing's poet laureates" delivered the most striking moment without speaking a word.